2005年NPR美国国家公共电台七月-The 'Times' Fascination with the Single M

And now a question we're all pondering: What’s on the mind of an unmarried man? Day to Day contributor Brian Unger is single, but even he doesn’t have a clue, still he says the New York Times is searching for an answer.

On Friday, gawker.com, a website that covers Manhattan media news and gossip, reported that the New York Times is going back again,one more time, delving 1 deep deep deep into the psyche 2 of America's single man to figure out once and for all---what is he thinking? Gawker.com cites a query 3 from ProfNet, the PR Newswire service that helps connect journalists with sources. In the item, a reporter for the New York Times is on the prowl. She writes, “I am exploring the topic of Yellow Light Bachelors, single straight men who have reached an age where their friends and family start to wonder what is wrong, why they are still single, are they commitment-phobes, are they gay, it’s the, well if he is so successful and attractive, yet single, what's wrong with him?”.

What's wrong with him might be the repetitive banging of the New York Times on his front door, desperately 4 wanting to get inside his brain. Gentleman, the old gray lady will not be ignored. She is gonna boil a bunny on your stove. You are being stalked by a newspaper. The upcoming yellow-light-bachelors expose comes on the heels of the July 5th Times' investigation 5 'Straight, Gay or Lying, Bisexuality Revisited', that on the heels of their ground-breaking June 19th report ‘Gay or Straight, hard to tell", that on the heels of their heart-hitting April 10th analysis ‘the Man Date-- what do you call two straight men having dinner', that on the heels of the now infamous 6 2003 journalistic nuclear bomb “Metrosexuals Come Out”.

Since the New York Times started probing unmarried men, the folks at Webster's and Microsoft haven’t been able to take a vacation. They are constantly having to update the dictionary and spell-check with words like metrosexual, man date and commitment-phobe. On every beach in the Hamptons, scrabble games have erupted in fist-fights over people trying to play the word gay-vague seduced 7 by its sexy point total. In its upcoming shot of these Zeitgeist smash-hit yellow light bachelors, the New York Times will again courageously 8 attempt to distill 9 man’s essence into a brand of shoe, define his elusiveness 10 by his hair product, discover his soul through his flat front pants, and give Fox News another reason to hate the New York Times. Perhaps the New York Times is coming out of the closet. Maybe it wants to change its monniker to the old gay lady, or more likely, these stories are paid back for generations of women having to endure the question : Why aren't you married, and furthermore why don't you have any kids? Will the New York Times ever uncover what's inside the mind of an unmarried man?

I am reminded of a joke, as old as the New York Times itself. A man says" I broke up with my girlfriend because she asked the wrong question." His friend asks :"what question is that?" The man replies," she asked what are you thinking”. And that’s today’s Unger Report, I am Brian Unger.